Like A Pie
by Wingedsquirel
Summary: Captain Hammer has been murdered and Dr. Horrible is the main suspect. The Pie Team is initally suspicous but maybe there's another layer, the same as the top.
1. Chapter 1: Nailed

Like a Pie

The facts were these….

The Evil League of Evil had begun looking for new recruits in Papen County famous for the highest homicide to population rate in the nation. The Guild of Goodness sought it fit to ask nearby LA Superhero Captain Hammer to root out their attempts to bring in new recruits. However Yesterday at exactly twelve hours twenty three minutes and five seconds ago he was murdered shot to death with a Death Ray and his body discarded in a local homeless shelter.

Ned, Chuck, Emerson Cod, and Olive Snook had gathered at the Pei Hole. They had answered Emerson's call to start investigating what seemed to be a rather promising mystery. "So anyway, this is a real snap. We have a superhero murdered which means that the Guild of Goodness will pay top dollar for the identity of the murderer. We've already got a prime suspect. William Buddy, A.K.A. Dr. Horrible, Hammer's arch-nemesis who has already attempted to kill this guy. He was sent on the Leagues super-villain recruitment assessment , a standard rookie job. "

"Oh, I know this guy. I love his blog." Olive Snook quipped. Emerson, Chuck, and Ned all stared at her. "Well not for the well evil part but you have to appreciate musical talent when you see it."

"What kind of super-villain blogs about his evil plans?" Emerson asked.

"Well he's pretty much stopped once his plans moved from petty theft to evil." Olive answered.

"Well I'm not one to pass up on an opportunity, but why is the Guild of Goodness hiring detectives to solve this, especially when there's such an obvious suspect?" Chuck asked.

"I personally would like to point out that the Guild of Justice mainly involves vigilantism rather than forensic investigation." Ned commented.

"Still sore about the Snow Incident?" Olive asked.

"He froze me for ten minutes because I was playing Dr. Hyde."

"Oh, come one Ned these are super-heroes. They're just normal people who happen to have bright costumes and superpowers. Besides it was quite a convincing laugh." Chuck reassured her boyfriend as she stopped herself from tapping him on his shoulder.

Once again Ned, Chuck, and Emerson walked past the double doors of the Papen County Morgue. Once again they went through the routine of bribing the coroner for access to their latest victim.

"Fees double today." He said.

"Why?" asked Chuck.

"The Guild of Goodness is paranoid about any attempts and the Evil League of Evil zombifiying Hammer's corpse. If I get caught there's gonna be hell. So today the fee is 100 bucks."

"Yes, zombifying we have absolutely nothing to do with us." Ned commented passing the coroner the money.

The fact that Hammer was far from the most gruesome of their victims was probably an indication of how weird their job was. There was a hole through his chest presumably where the hammer insignia used to stand.

"OK, Ned t-minus 60 seconds. And Dead Girl, please save all that last resorts bullcrap till after we get the murderer." Emerson asked.

Ned set his watch and touched Hammer's lifeless hand.

He began singing in a way that Olive might do when she was alone.

"Sixty seconds"

"I thank you Guild of Goodness for giving me a second go

I accept your resurrection, I'm awesome as you know."

Chuck decided to play along for some reason

"I'm sorry Mr. Hammer there must be a mistake,

Ned gave you minute, but in a minute he must take."

Emerson "Why are you….? Never mind, as long as you sing faster."

Ned joined in as well.

"We're private detective's, hired by the Guild. We'd like to get to the bottom of this murder if you will. Horrible's our suspect in this heinous crime. But you need to sing quickly cause we're running out of time."

"I'm sorry I saw nothing that is sincerely true, a got shot with a death ray right out of the blue. But Horrible is Horrible and as Horrible does, and he really really hates me most because…

Emerson said, "Please speed this up, any more evidence. We don't want your life story."

"To be brief he has a death ray and is my greatest foe. I will admit, I mostly cause him nothing but woe."

"Before you're time is up hammer and we put you to rest. Is there any thing you truly want one ultimate request?"

"Well, I'd really like some extra time but beggars can't be choosers, just find him, maybe beat him up, that creepy nerdy loser"

"What was with the singing?" Emerson asked. "I thought it was only Olive who burst out into song like that? And you two were encouraging him."

"Well. When else would I get a chance to sing with a dead superhero? But I didn't expect him to be so vindictive?"

"Well, that's why I don't like superheroes. They always think their better than everyone just because they can beat up a few thugs. He was actually expecting to be resurrected. Did you catch that? Arrogant…. Think they can cheat death." Ned mumbled.

"Ned, you're just making excuses, you mess with death every time you bake a pie. He's just another victim who might be a bit more upset about his death. Let's just check out Horrible."

As they left another figure came in the morgue. Chuck heard him, under his breath.

"Slipping."


	2. Chapter 2: Bitter

Such a sick twisted little town, sugar coated, but still disgustingly bitter. Horrible could act his way of course, but now he didn't need to. Billy's just a disguise now, a secret identity. There was essentially no law enforcement, no one who cared to protect these people from themselves, only a couple of local business owners with some free time.

Disturbing crimes done in the name of greed and... love. Horrible knew he wasn't one to judge on the latter.

He stopped by a local business with a Pie shaped canopy. The Pie Hole, he'd read that the private investigators here baffled the police with their accuracy. Certainly the last place a potential super-villain would want to go.

He continued on to the side of town that didn't hide its evil nature. The Evil League of Evil had called ahead reserving two cheap rooms for him and his henchman Moist at the Come and Sleep Hotel.

"You OK, Billy. You know after the shelter incident you haven't actually said much. Everything you say is pretty much a response or a threat."

"Please be quiet, if you give us away, I'll… um… hit you with my pain inducing ray. "

"I know you deal with rays Billy, but I don't know why you carry around all these rays. Some of them are kind of redundant. I know the Freeze Ray is very, very cool, but wouldn't the stun gun… I mean ray work just as well."

Moist began blathering one about the practicality of his various rays. But after a minute had passed he realized he wasn't getting a response.

"Where are you keeping all these rays anyway?" he tried again.

"Horriblespace."

"Don't you mean…"

"Horriblespace. It's my new invention. A pocket dimension behind my goggles that can keep all my weapons."

"Why are you even bothering with crime again?" Moist asked.

Horrible remembered when he tried to use super-villainy as a way to attract attention. Surely if he successfully subverted the system the problems of society might become apparent. "It's not about making money, it's about taking money."

Moist's grip on the suitcase was staring to slip. "Billy can you hold the suitcase? You know I have this Moisture problem."

Horrible grabbed the suitcase. "Normally I'd but this in Horriblespace to but it's really just a prototype. Keeping the guns in there because we are keeping a low profile. We're just ordinary people taking the cheapest rooms we can afford. Let's avoid attracting too much attention in public."

He glanced down at the sidewalk a copper coin. He couldn't help but stare at it.

Moist said "Snap out of it Billy, I honestly think something's been up with you. I know it's about Penny. Listen man, she's gone. No good obsessing over a dead girl for the rest of your life. Listen, you've got your dream job now and there's no point in any of this if you don't get to your world plans… things."

Moist was right. This place was the perfect stepping stone to getting henchmen. No matter how competent a villain was on his own, no one could possibly take over the world single handedly. Once they reached Bitter Bar they could find others that would ensure his success.

The ELE had said cheap. However this was beyond cheap. This was a crack house in a city of cotton candy. "Is it too late to find a nice cardboard box?" Moist asked.

The two drudged up to the third floor to find that looks in fact weren't deceiving them here. The whole place was a mess rife with poor travelers and criminals. This was everything wrong with California, no America in general. There was an entire city if people wealthy and happy, while there was poverty and corruption right next door. Did anyone even try to help the people here?

_________________________________________________________________

Olive had no luck at finding any of Horrible's activities online for the last two months. It was a shame he'd stopped posting in his blog. She loved it when he'd post songs, apparently failing to realize that he was even singing.

"Welcome to the Hotel California/ Such a lovely place/Such a Lovely place"

She wasn't anyone to talk. Whenever she was alone, she'd start singing something… a rock song, a show tune, anything she had stuck in her head at the moment. Her watch beeped, it was a Sunday 5:00 her shift was technically over. But, now it was time to do her self-given duty.

She got a couple of dozen pies. She took out the money placed it in the register and took the pies to her car.

"Slice of Life"

"_One day Chuck was out of luck/ and though I'm not sure why/ she pranced around seeing her aunts/ but they still needed pie/ Every day I would go through the Sunday city streets/ delivering to her aunts these quaint delicious sweets._

_But down at the slums of town/ there was no shiny glitter/ Though Main street was always sweet/ downtown was always bitter/ the poor would cry I gave them pie/ if only just a slice/ and when Chuck didn't give them I would always pay the price_

_All the people/ all the poor/ the ones waiting at death's door/ I can't resist the urge to assist._

_And every week/ I try to seek/ a better world for all/ but all the changes. / What is strange is/ they're just too damn small"_

Maybe she could relate to the villain, a couple of pies don't solve world hunger. But, that poor girl… the one mentioned as only "hero's girlfriend" on the LA news' account. She was simply trying to help the poor, how would killing her… no killing anyone… solve anything?

Her job as a detective let her see a lot of nut jobs. But, the story didn't click somehow. He wasn't happy about what happened. The last blog he ever sent were two words, the most heartbreaking words ever sung. There wasn't a cheerful context, or any context whatsoever, but there was no triumph in those notes.

"A thing."

Something made her doubt that that was a killer's voice.


	3. Chapter 3: Dampened

After they'd reached their room they found out their room was dully painted he must dull shade of brown Horrible had ever seen. Outside the window the colors sparkled in the sunset, horribly contrasting with the roach filled dump that lay before them. He turned out hoping to get away from this room as fast as possible, he could afford a better hotel than this.

But waiting for him were the 'Porter's express. Born with teleportation power's they were the leagues messengers.

"Bad Horse Chorus ( Re-Reprise)"

We know accommodations

Leave much to be desired

You must complete initiation

Or else you're fired

Announce an invitation

To this town's undesired

To drag others

in evil along

We need another

Villain Song

And they disappeared.

"A Villain Song? This assignment was only for a couple of days. What does Bad Horse expect you to be BachTor Horrible." Moist asked

"That joke is painful on many levels. But as for me, I minored in musical theory in college. I a… was also a musical theatre geek. Though I'm not quite sure what they meant by "another" villain song." The Doctor responded.

"You mean you haven't even…" Moist asked. But he stopped himself. Villains and heroes were often hired on their entertainment value, but few of either side liked to acknowledge that they were "performing" crimes.

"Well if I'm going to get ahead on this. I better start on this song if we've got two days to convince the mass unorganized low-lives to become mass organized low-lives. Hm… what rhymes with 'evil'?"

Moist headed down to the hotel lobby hoping that they could possible switch to a room with a de-humidifier. This somehow led to him getting the number of the handsome desk clerk. But Moist was still left to sweat in the hottest moistest day in August.

In one of the bar's booths he spotted three figures holding newspapers as to disguise their faces. This naturally meant that they were obviously up to ….. good.

An advantage to being Moist is that people didn't pay attention to him. People didn't want to pay attention to someone who was plain and wet as a guppy. He casually leaned up to the booth pretending to read the special menus ( Shrimp Malfredo, man they were desperate). A quick glance indicated the trio consisted of a large black detective, a brown-haired chef (technically he knew this due to the scent of strawberries and flour), and a red-haired woman he was sure he'd seen somewhere.

"Dead-Girl ,are you sure we should be here? This place is crawling with villains who won't take kindly to a PI who probably have locked away somebody's cousin?" the black man said.

"Well, we need to find a villain so our best bet is to look at this town's villain hangout."

Dead-Girl huh… he'd probably seen her on the GUG profiles somewhere.

"Well none of us are exactly low-profile among criminals. Is there any way we can get someone here who blends in more?"

"Ooh, Aunt Lily. I mean my mom. She looks like a supervillain with that eye-patch and she comes here on Saturday nights for Karaoke."

"Brilliant, Chuck. Tell her to look out for a 'blond, blue-eyed Adonis whose voice can move even the most terrified of bystanders.' Wait a second…. Who wrote this article?" the piemaker said.

"Hannah Rosenberg. She's actually the super-fan who leads the Dr, Horrible fan-club. So much for 'fair and balanced reporting'. There's about a paragraph here about the actual murder. The rest is just gushing about Dr, Horrible's talents."

"I think Olive's a super-fan. She loves talking about the musical talents in Los Angeles., but all of them have names that Start with Captain, or end with Girl." that girl who must be Chuck said.

"Well let's just see if she has some info on this guy. I have a daughter to support now so I can't screw up this case."

The three left, kindly recycling their newspapers into a mostly untouched as they walked out the door.

Moist felt for the man but he wasn't going to let Billy take the fall for another murder. He'd known that the story the press had reported was bullshit. But, Billy had taken the credit for it, killing Penny, because he wanted to change the world? Because her death had put him into shock? Was it that he couldn't let it be a meaningless death? But, Horrible wasn't a killer. Moist was going to find out what was really going on. Starting with the story on page 2.

Olive was shocked to discover that the homeless shelter wouldn't accept her pies today. Niki Grace was over her head with the Guild and the

"We have a murder investigation on our hands Olive, feel free to drop these pies off later, but right now we're about to receive envoys from The Guild of Good."

"Just my luck that the corporate tool was murdered in this homeless shelter, also my irony. Well I'm a detective so can I go through? I'm very experienced at this."

She wasn't. Emerson usually handled physical evidence while she interrogated the people related to the case.

"Well you better hurry up Detective Snook. The Guild will be here in less than five minutes." They want everybody out before then."

Olive quickly stashed her pies back in her bag. She dashed to the burn marks which marked the scene of the crime, taking a few pictures, babbling about ballistics while aware of Grace, staring her down. Niki looked down at her clipboard, while Olive took this opportunity to dash to the kitchen. She stuffed the pies in the fridge hastily. Unfortunately her escape plan was thwarted when she realized that the back door was locked.

"Sugar" she exclaimed. Her only way out was the front door, but the Guild envoys had already arrived. She waited for them to leave but overheard a very suspicious conversation.


End file.
